Warlords of Draenor Challenge Mode Guide

Challenge Modes in Warlords of Draenor are a great way to get gear, learn more about your class, and acquire vanity rewards!

In this guide, we've previewed all the rewards you can achieve, from transmog gear to mounts, and gone over special gearing and zone rules.

We've also included links to helpful walkthrough videos of each zone as well as Blizzard's realm leaderboards. Finally, we made a list of unconventional items that can help shave off seconds on your run.

Challenge Mode Overview

Challenge Modes are timed instance runs in which your gear is scaled down to ilvl 630. This ensures that running these instances will be challenging even in later tiers--you can't outgear it. In addition, the pulls are more complex than on Heroic mode, and mobs do much more damage.

There are three tiers of rewards: Gold, Silver, and Bronze, which are obtained based on how quickly you complete the zone. We've listed these rewards below, which include mounts, titles, and transmoggable weapons with special effects.

Mechanisms have been added to prevent skipping trash, primarily a requirement that you kill a minimum number of trash mobs to complete the zone.

The daily Challenge Mode quest in Warlords of Draenor awards an ilvl 640 epic. In Patch 6.1, these rewards will be ilvl 660 instead.

Zones Overviews and Strategy Guides

All eight new dungeons added in Warlords of Draenor have challenge mode versions. We've listed the qualifying Gold, Silver, and Bronze times below, as well as links to our Warlords of Draenor dungeon guides which include tips for Challenge Mode difficulty.

We've teamed up with <Method> to create a series of Challenge Mode guides! These will be going away in the Legion pre-patch, so watch these videos if you want to achieve gold and get the special rewards!

Gearing Rules

Any item above ilvl 630 are scaled down to ilvl 630; items that are 630 or below are not affected or scaled up.

In general, save items of any ilvl >= 630 that have your favored stats (such as from Mission rewards). It is much easier to swap item setups now than it was in Mists.

Any trinket of ilvl 630 or higher is a valid choice because of the wide selection of unique procs, so you have a wide array of trinkets to consider compared to armor. In general, trinkets that drop Highmaul and Foundry still have high amounts of stats when scaled down to ilvl 630.

Tier set bonuses are not active, and neither are tertiary stats or gem sockets.

Stats from consumables and enchants are not reduced.

Instance Rules

cannot be used in a Challenge Mode.

If you release, you get rezzed at the instance's entrance or at checkpoints that are sometimes created when you kill a boss.

Unlike other dungeons, Challenge Modes can be reset as many times as you like (the group leader will have a special menu option that sends you back to the beginning, respawns the zone, and resets the timer). There is no hourly cap or daily lockout.

Bosses do not drop loot and gear does not take a durability loss.

You cannot swap party members without exiting and fully resetting the zone.

Rewards

There are a variety of rewards for completing Challenge Modes at Gold, Silver, and Bronze times. There are also achievements for simply completing each zone, as well as completing them with Bronze, Silver, and Gold times. Full list of Challenge Mode achievements is here.

Daily Quest Rewards

The gear rewards are ilvl 660 and come with randomized secondary stat combinations. They can also be Warforged (+6 ilvls), have an extra gem socket, and/or a tertiary stats. Click on the "Contains" tab on the Rusted Challenger's Strongbox page to see all the possible gear rewards.

Players can see two of the following stats on gear: Critical Strike, Haste, Multistrike, Versatility, Mastery. For rings and amulets, tanks can also see Bonus Armor and healers can also see Spirit.

In Patch 6.2, the gear rewarded from will be ilvl 680, up from ilvl 660.

Comments

Comment by Folla

Comment by Jouninz

An incapacitate that in practice causes enemies to reset their cast timer.

Example on useful locations: Every trash pack in Everbloom; UBRS when ogres try to release proto-drakes.

Does not share CD with potions (1 min CD).

Comment by lahtinen

Flasks last for an hour and are removed upon death.

Is this correct in the challenge modes?

Comment by LoDvampire

Blizzard just forgot to make a "male" version of the CM Bow, the other weapons are full of spikes and fire, but the Bow has flowers and buterflies, wtf?

Comment by xoneka

Drums of Fury is a nice addiction since Drums of Rage could not be used in Mysts, so a shaman or a mage are not a must have on this expansion :)

Comment by Knitten

It may be worth adding that hunters, mages, and warlocks with pets should dismiss pets before entering invisibility. Any DOTs, including monk tank stagger, will cancel invisibility.

Comment by simpetar

All engineering belt tinkers can misfire, CMs are no exception. In addition to triggering potion CD (most notably Nitro Boosts and Invisibility Field), they can have nasty side effects. Nitro Boosts (aka rocket belt) can start to leak fuel, inflicting aggresive fire DoT on the user. If invisibility field malfunctions, you will see the blurry shady animation as if it worked, but monsters can see you.

In short: engineering enchants are unreliable and should not be used in serious CMs - any malfunction can cost you the medal.

Comment by matoh

So that's why Cobalt ore is pretty hard to get in my server. Apparently people are farming it for bombs.

Comparing Bronzed Elekk Statue to Evergaze Arcane Eidolon, the cheaper version has less useful stats and less bonus armor proc, but for someone who doesn't want to raid on their tank the statue is a very strong alternative.

The strength version Bajheric Bangle of Scabbard of Kyanos isn't nearly as strong when both are in a CM, but scabbard is also really overpowered. If you are limited to a low budget and only heroic dungeon loot, then Bajheric Bangle is probably the best option to get huge bladestorms since it procs a main stat and the alternatives proc secondary stats.

The alchemy trinket Draenic Philosopher's Stone is very strong because it lasts 15 seconds on a 55s icd, so it ends up having high uptime on a pretty strong proc.

If you only have access to heroic dungeon loot, and cheap auction house items, then they are probably BiS for classes that do lots of burst damage in their openers. I usually can grab each of the boe items for 100-300 gold, and leveling alchemy to use the trinket is very cost-effective if you create potions.

Comment by Serjekk

Comment by Kamikaze28

With the Baleful Tokens from Tanaan, equipment optimization for CMs just got a lot easier:

Farm Apexis Crystals

Buy the token that could improve your CM gear

If it has the right stats, move on to another slot, if not repeat steps 1+2 as needed

Comment by GreySage

Does the Legendary Ring work in CM?

Comment by ElentilSDS

I have a question : Do we know how will the new void storage / transmog system affect challenge mode rewards? For example, if I complete the achievement on a tank, will I be able to use the weapons for transmog on other characters through the account-wide system? Has Blizzard mentioned anything on this matter?

Comment by Kovarian

Are the Feats of Strength for realm-best times persistent or do they go away if the time is beaten? I know the titles go away if someone beats your time, but I'm not seeing anything saying whether the achievement itself gets revoked.

Also, if I complete gold for all the dungeons on one character, will my other characters have access to the special weapons, or are those locked to just the character that completes the achievement?

Comment by Sarthorius

Here needs to change:

Goblin Glider: Permanently attaches a specialized folding assembly to a cloak, allowing you to deploy a goblin glider and fall slowly for 30 sec. On a five minute cooldown, requires 500 Engineering to use. Reagents: Tinker's Kit

to:

Goblin Glider: Permanently attaches a specialized folding assembly to a cloak, allowing you to deploy a goblin glider and fall slowly for 120 sec. On a three minute cooldown, requires 500 Engineering to use. Reagents: Tinker's Kit

Blizz never updated the tooltip to match the previous glider spell, which, as we all that have used them in wod already know, it has the second quote's duration/cooldowns.

Comment by iSondre

Does this mean that if I do this on my Warrior - and I buy ALL of the weapons, can my other toons that has not completed challenge mode use the weapons in Legion? Or do I need to complete it on all of my characters?

Comment by jjanchan

I've created a guide that outlines the use of Grounding Totem, Dark Sim, Spell Reflect and Glyphed Deterrence. Check it out here - it can definitely be helpful to net you a Gold medal, or even to gun for realm first times!

Comment by Malgrain

I have a question. My Destro Warlock is geared for PvP- nearly full conquest. I have been told that I need BiS and that it would be baleful or pieces like it- I'm trying to do gold challenge mode, not record. Do I need to farm baleful or is nearly full conquest enough to work? It gets scaled down, so I feel like it'd work, right?